Friday, July 23, 2010

It's been an eventful week so far and UGA has come under fire from two unlikely media sources, TMZ and the Orlando Sentinel. Let's take a look at what's going on in Georgia football...

- The biggest news of the week is that TMZ is reporting that the NCAA is investigating whether AJ Green partied at the infamous South Beach bash. AJ says he's never been to Miami and at least one other source is on record saying AJ was with his family that weekend in South Carolina. Former UGA WR Michael Moore (@MikeMoore17 on Twitter) came to AJ's defense when he tweeted "Hahaha this talk bout AJ is hilarious..that country boy ain't never been to Miami!!! You can put those rumors to rest". Hopefully everything is cleared up and no wrong doing is found on the part of AJ or any other Bulldog. Former UGA QB Buck Belue chimed in on his blog about how critical AJ is this season for Aaron Murray. Speaking of the whole sleaziness of agents, Buck's 680thefan co-host John Kincaid asked a very good question on his radio show today and on twitter.."So these CF players get their names dragged through the mud attending a party yet the host has yet to be named? Why? Who is the agent?"

- On the subject of Buck Belue...The Orlando Sentinel, who I already have a beef with due to their #65 ranking of UGA in their pre-season poll (which was either done out of pure stupidity, an attempt to kiss up to Urban Meyer after getting on his bad side last year or purely to get site hits), has now posted an article by Mike Bianchi that says "Georgia might be the most overrated program in college football history" and also calls Buck to Lindsey a "fluke" and that Georgia would be South Carolina without it. Let's first address the idiotic notion that "Georgia might be the most overrated program in college football history". Obviously Bianchi's history of college football spans about 20 years and he has just decided that anything happening prior to 1980 does not count. The AJC's Bill King responded by reminding Bianchi that the University of Georgia is one of the Top 15 winningest college football programs of all-time. UGA has even won more games and at a better % than has the University of Florida. So I think that dispels Bianchi's notion that UGA is one of the most overrated program's in college football history. Now let's address his calling Buck to Lindsey "one of the biggest fluke plays in college football history". Bianchi is obviously the type of guy who likes to exaggerate. The fact is that you can point at almost every team that has won a championship and go back to a game or a play and if the ball bounced the wrong way or a guy was in the right position that the hopes of a National Championship might have been destroyed. Let's take a look at the 2002 Ohio State Buckeyes (they are in my mind because of the previous interview I did with Rob Harley). That team actually won 7 games by one score or less. Now that's living on the edge. In order to win a championship you have to have things go your way. Look at Alabama last year and the Tennessee missed FG. I really even hate to give the Orlando Sentinel and their sleaze mentality of selling newspapers/creating controversy to get website hits but I felt it needed to be addressed. I also find it funny that the "links" that are right under the column header are for college football, University of Florida and Urban Meyer. Maybe it was/is all about negative recruiting against Georgia.

- SEC Media Days was this week and the coaches and media All-SEC teams were announced. The coaches selected WR AJ Green, OT Clint Boling, K Blair Walsh and P Drew Butler on the first team and named OL Cordy Glenn and RS (Return Specialist) Brandon Boykin to the second team. I'm kind of surprised that Justin Houston wasn't named. He is the leading sack returner in the SEC and he didn't even play a full season last year. The media's first team included WR AJ Green, OL Clint Boling, K Blair Walsh and P Drew Butler. On the second team they put LB Justin Houston and CB Brandon Boykin.

- ESPN blogger Chris Low has been ranking the units in the SEC and he's got UGA near the top of a lot of the rankings so far. He has Georgia with the #3 OL (behind Florida and Bama), #2 in Receivers (behind Arkansas), and #2 in RB (behind Bama). He also lists Georgia at #7 in QB, which is surprising since our starter has never taken a snap, his back-up will be playing WR instead of QB and the third string guy is a true freshman.

- Georgia landed a couple OL recruits last week in Zach DeBell and Nathan Theus. DeBell is listed on Rivals as a 4-Star recruit with offers from Clemson, Florida (offered after he committed to Georgia and he told them he was with Georgia), Michigan, Notre Dame and Tennessee among others. Rivals does not have a ranking on Theus but he was also offered by FSU and South Carolina. Theus will be "gray shirting" which means that he won't enroll until January of 2012 and thus will not count against the 2011 class. He is doing this to be in school at the same time as his younger brother John, who is considered one of the top prospects of 2012. An awesome quote from DeBell ""I’ve seen probably every zombie movie ever made," he said. "That’s why I have short hair. If you have long hair or a mullet they’ll grab it from behind."

- On another recruiting note it looks like Georgia is in strong contention for two elite RBs and an elite TE. Isaiah Crowell of Columbus looks like he has narrowed his top choices down to Alabama and Georgia (although Clemson and FSU are still in the mix). Georgia recently landed USC transfer LB Jarvis Jones who is a former teammate of Crowell's and they spent a lot of time together last weekend in Athens as a part of Dawg Night. Rivals lists Crowell as the #4 RB and #17 overall prospect. The other RB is James Wilder, Jr (he also spent a lot of time with Jones last weekend) and Rivals has him as the #1 RB and #3 prospect in the nation. Wilder went to the same high school as QB Aaron Murray and TE Orson Charles. The elite TE in question is Jay Rome, who is ranked #3 at his position and #40 nationally by Rivals. Rome has offers from Bama, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, FSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Tennessee, etc. If Georgia could land 2 of these guys it would be huge to their "Dream Team" pitch that they've been making. Recruiting guru Jamie Newberg has a good article up on Georgia and it's recruiting efforts this year on ESPN. He mentions Georgia's use of the ipad in their "Dream Team" presentations to recruits and their response to it.

- Last but not least Mike Bobo is teasing us with using AJ Green as a RB or as a QB in the Wild Dawg formation. This would be an interesting change of pace but there was a lot of hype last year that Bobo would use Logan Gray in these situations and whenever he was brought into the game the play calling was too predictable. That being said, if AJ Green lines up at QB and Branden Smith is out at WR you know the other teams defensive coordinator is going to be calling a quick TO.

I might do a weekly column like this for Georgia as our Alabama blogger is doing with his "Bric-A-Brac" so if anybody can come up with a cool name like that for my column then I would be eternally grateful.

One last note if you have the PS3 version of NCAA 11. I figured I would try out the online dynasty feature. If you want to join just do a search for "CFBZ1"..

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